It might not be the words pleasing to the ears of the right-wing sector of the Republican Party of the Tea Party, but one politician, a former Chairman of the Republican National Committee, staked out a claim that goes against the grain of a number of speakers on the Republican Leadership Conference podium this week.

Republicans need “a big party” both to win elections and to govern, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Friday.

“The purpose of winning is to govern – to set good policy and then implement it in a way that produces the best result for America and Americans,” Barbour said in a speech to the Republican Leadership Conference (RLC) at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. “To do that we have to remember we have to be a big party.”

Barbour, who served in the Reagan administration and was formerly chairman of the RNC encouraged his fellow conservatives to emulate Ronald Reagan’s approach to politics.

“It takes a large party, and if everybody has to agree with Haley Barbour on everything to be a good Republican, we’d have a mighty small party,” he said. “In a two-party system, purity is the enemy of victory.”